Doctor Appointment

Early in the morning, Ax putting on his school uniform after a freezing cold morning shower. It was friday and Ax was ready to go to school on the last school day of the week.

After what happened to him when the penalty was over, he told Lisa that he got a bad stomachache so that he could have full rest for a day. One full day resting had made the wound slightly better. The blood was no longer flowing out and bother most of his activity like walking to the dining table. Or even taking a shit. Besides, his left hand was also feeling better though still in a cast. His routine had became slightly easier.

With school uniform has been worn, he went out from his bedroom while grabbing his backpack just beside the door.

"Leon, why are you wearing your school uniform?" Lisa suddenly voiced from the couch in the living room. A magazine was laid open on the table.

Leon was confused by the sudden question. "Why?" His confused expression was clear on his face. Shouldn't he be going to school? It was not a holiday after all.

"You have doctor appointment today. For your hand. You forgot?"

He glance at his left hand and remembered about the appointment.

A sigh was released upon seeing how forgetful her son is. "The appointment is on ten thirty. Change your cloth and get ready. We'll move at nine thirty." She said as she swiped a page of her magazine.

"Hmm... 'Kay." He went back upstair, into his bedroom. Changed his uniform to a casual cloth. Red t-shirt along with a black hoodie, black pants. Putting on his shoes, and he's done.

On the way to the hospital, inside Lisa's car, a question has been lingering in Lisa's mind for a while now. It's a question she must ask to her delinquent but not delinquent son. "Hey Leon. I forgot to ask this yesterday. But what made you have terrible stomache ache that you have to skip school two days ago?" Her face was neutral at the time. Probably waiting for Leon's answer and her expression might change depending to the answer she get.

Her question struck him like a thousand needles. For the past two days, he had been too focused on his wound and resting all day that he forgot had not been on the school two days ago due to the penalty. Within the short time, he needs to think of a solid excuse, an excuse that will surely make Lisa to buy it. Therefore, he would not get beaten up by Lisa again.

Tons of ideas forming, came and out of his head. But he knew that not even one of it id believable for Lisa. Then, a memory flashed before his eyes. The canteen's food. A super solid reason that is believable. A smirk shaped on his face.

"I... Ate the food at the school's canteen. Then my stomach began to rumbles like crazy and I've been shitting all day. Terrible food poisoning I guess..." He just hoping that his excuse would be bought by her. Apparently, he had told Lisa that he got stomachache the day before.

"I heard that your school canteen is very bad. Do students even go there?" Her voice doesn't sound to have any doubt in it.

"Well, depends. Students that ate there could be count with one hand. I don't want to eat there but I didn't bring my wallet and I'm hungry. So that's what happened."

She sighed. "Next time, don't go there anymore. Just eat somewhere else. Ask Eric for some money if you forgot your wallet. He's rich after all."

Some chuckles escaped his mouth. "Yeah..." He said with calm face but inside was another thing.

'Yes!' He celebrated silently. 'She actually bought it!'

Upon arriving at the hospital, Lisa parked the car at a parking space around the hospital. They went in and patiently wait for their turn to meet the doctor. While waiting for their turn, Ax got extremely bored and played any mobile games that Leon had installed on his phone. Surprisingly, Leon was actually a pro gamer considering his ranking in the games were one of the top. It actually caught Ax himself in surprise.

After almost an hour of waiting, they finally get their turn. His name had finally been called by the nurse to meet his doctor. As an underage, Ax couldn't go alone. Therefore, Lisa had to accompany him to meet the doctor.

By following tye doctor's instructions, he did an x-ray check-up on his left hand. Most surprisingly, they found that his hand had already fully recovered. Not even a crack on the bones anymore.

"This is a very rare case. Your hand had fully healed..." The result of the x-ray was given to them to see. "In two weeks."

"Ooh, I'm pretty special, ain't it?" Even Ax was amazed by his own recovery rate.

Even though it should be a happy moment for them and they should be in joy, Lisa's expression seemed to be slightly wary. It seems like she was worried about something after seeing the result. But she tried to hid it with a smile. She forced herself to give an assured smile.

"From now on, there's no need for you to be burdened with the casting anymore." The doctor spoke to him with a joking tone.

"Great to hear that, doctor. Thank you for everything you've done for my son. Now, please excuse us." Lisa was ready to leave.

"Um, miss. Can you spare a minute please?" He asked her sincerely. His question made them to sit again to hear what he was going to say. "Thank you, miss. Well, I'd like to have a talk about something with your son. So if you allow it, can I meet with your son later?"

She looks at her son. Ax just shrugged telling that he don't know anything. "Why not now?" She questioned the doctor.

"Well, the hospital is currently full of patuents. And I can't just make them wait for so long just because of my personal reason."

And again, she looks at her son as was also looking back at her. She wanted to know his opinion of this but he just shrugged again and let her do the decision. He doesn't seems to be bothered much about it.

She turned to the doctor again. "Yes." Simply answered.

"Great! This is my number. I'll tell you when I want to see Leon." He handed her a piece of paper with his personal phone number on it.

She took it. Then, both of them walked out from the doctor's office. Unbeknown to them that the doctor was staring at them from behind with sharp eyes.

Just when both of them entered the car and Lisa started the engine, she voiced out a question. Asking her son something before moving. "Leon... Did you went to the abandoned shrine?"

Ax founds the question weird. He raised an eyesbrow. "No. Why?"

She was silent for a while. But then simply reply with "Nothing." And they drove off.

. . .

Midnight, everyone had fallen asleep including Ax who tends to sleep very late in the morning. The night was silent in the neighborhood.

But just outside the neighborhood, there was an abandoned shrine just beside the forest. Because of the numerous rumors about ghosts were currently residing in the shrine, no people actually dare to get anywhere near it. Though there were some peope who entered to find ghosts, they didn't managed to actually get inside the shrine's building due to them not able to reach the main door. When they stepped inside the gate and walking towards the door , they began to seeing things, hearing things and feeling nauseous. Their vision would also become blurry. And even they managed to reach the door, it was locked with chains. Clearly there were some secrets inside.

But a humanoid figure in black hood robe suddenly appeared in front of the shrine. The figure stepped into the main gate and walking towards the front door. But nothing seems to bother him at all. He walks straight without any kind of problem. The lock on the chain that keep the door shut was grabbed and a key unlocked it. He entered the shrine. There were arrays of unburned torches on the walls left and right. He took one on his right and lit it up.

An old sliding door was pulled. The door was stuck but after some pulls, he managed to open it and entered the room. It was a storage room that was filled with many old things and was very dusty. Abug dusty crate was approached by him and pushed aside, revealing a hidden trap door beneath it.

The door was opened. It revealed a stair that leads down to a dark path. After walking down the stair for some minutes, he reached the bottom of the stair. Continued moving, walking forward till he reached a giant gate. It was a massive gate created with some kind of black rock. He pushed it with all of his might but just managed to open it to barely enough to slip into the room behinds the gate.

Inside, was a massive space with a black cube that was sized about forty centimeters per square. Slashes marks like claw marks were all over the cube. The marks were emitting red lights from inside that were flickering as there was something moving restlessly inside it. The cube was also stuck to chains on each of it's corners.

'There're more cracks than before. The seal has grown weaker. No wonder his injury healed so fast.'

The dim light that was exude from the cube shone on the figure's face. It was actually Lisa with the black robe. Her expression was cold at the time. But she was certainly worried about the thing thing inside the cube would freed itself in a very short amount of time.

A piece of paper with scrabbles- a talisman was brought out and a mantra was being chanted. Soon after, she slapped the talisman onto one of the chains. Trying to strengthen the seal.

It was revealed, there were so many other talsimans that were stuck to chains. Turned out, it was not the first time she did it might be already hundredth of times already just to keep the thing insude the cube where is suppose to be.

After finished with the talisman and the cube, she walked out of the place hurriedly. Then, the gate was slowly closing by itself. But unbeknown to her, the thing inside the cube was peeking on her all the time from a crack. It's bird-like eye were staring at her woth wrath.

. . .

Ax was standing beside a bus stop in the middle of Brekord City. The sun had already shone bright shone bright in the sky. He was waiting for others to arrive while playing with a video game on his phone.

After a long time waiting alone, Eric finally emerged in his sight. At the other side of the street, Eric was walking along with a girl wearing an unzipped white furry sweater and pink skirt.

The moment the girl got him in sight, she started to ran towards him in excitement. Almost killed herself by crossing the road while the light was still red. Fortunate enough, the light turned green the moment she stepped on the road.

"Shit. This girl..." Eric was worried sick the moment she began to run.

She reached Ax and leapt towards him, hugs him. Now, if it was some other time, he might be happy about the hug but at the time, his wound was still not fully healed yet. Therefore, he was bearing a great pain she gave him as she hugs him.

"It's been a week since I last saw you, Leon." She said as she looked to his eyes with a big innocent smile on her face.

He put his left hand on her shoulder, shaking. He pushed her aside gently with his shaking hand. Luckily, he was just hurting. The wound did not opened up

Emilia confused and worried at the same time "Leon, are you okay...?" Her expression was clearly worrying about him.

"I'm- I'm okay..." He stuttered as he speaks. An assure smile was forced.

"Were you the only one here? How long have you been waiting for us alone?" Eric asked.

Ax force himself to stand straight and holding back the pain. "I'm the only one here. And I've been waiting for almost half an hour. Waiting for your rich ass to be here." Suddenly, someone pinched Ax on the back. Startled Ax. "Agh! That's hurt."

"Serve you right." Emilia pouts. "I'm his twin you know that too."

"Oh, yeah..." Ax forgot about that fact. "Well I'm sorry for that."

"You look like you were suffering just now. Are you okay?" Eric was slightly worried about his friend's condition. After all, no one should get hurt badly when they received a hug. "And I realized that your hand is not in cast anymore."

"Yeah. I just got it off yesterday. Feels a lot better without it.

"Oh, you guys gathered early." A woman's vouce butted in.

A girl wearing a jean pants and a white t-shirt along with black leather jacket. Behinds her was another girl with short hair.

"Oh, Phoebe. You're finally here." Eruc approaches her with open arms and kisses her. They hugged each others.

Without releasing her embrace, Phoebe apologizes to him "Sorry, did you wait for long?"

Eric shake his head. "Not really. Leon was the one who has been waiting for long. We're just arrived.

"Seems like I'm right in time. By the way, this is the friend I've been talking about. She's in the same club as me." She points at the girl behinds her with her thumb.

The moment the boys laud theur eyes on the girl behinds Phoebe, they both were wheezing in surprise at the same time. They seems to be familiar with the girl.

"You're that hallway supervisor!" Eric said as he pointed at his finger at the girl.

The girl replied by staring at them with dull eyes.

Phoebe raised an eyebrow. "You know her, Eric?"

"We stumbled upon her about four days ago when we were doing some spy things. Then, we got into an argument for a while before she brought up her trump card against ours to shut us off." Short and brief explanation was given.

"I see now. But please let the past be the past. She's my friend and I will never let you fight her." She crossed her arms.

"Okay, fine. Don't be mad."

She smiles. "Good." She poked the other girl with her elbow. "Come on, Lily. Introduce yourself." She whispered to the girl.

Lily glanced at Phoebe for a short moment before she began to i troduce herself. "The name is Lily Heistworth. Gone to the same class as Phoeb." Simply introduced herself with emotionless face.

'So plain...' Ax thought.

"Put that cold gaze away, will ya...?" Eric mumbles.

"Hi, Lily." Unexpectedly for Lily, Emilia grabs her right hand and introduced herself. "Emilia Stone, class 202. Same as Leon and Eric. Nice to meet you." She was so excited about it apparently. "Also, the loudmouth here is Eric. And the quiet guy wannabe here is Leon."

"What the..." Ax startled by the name Emilia gave him.

Eruc slap both his hands together. "Since we're all here already, let's move now. The match will start in forty minutes."

Phoebe took Eric's arm and hold him dearly as Lily walks beside her. Meanwhile, Emilia grabbed Ax's right hand and joyfully walk together with him. Clearly, Ax was enjoying the moment even though he was not very familiar with the girl. But a single notification suddenly registered into his phone and disrupted his mood. Despite that, he was still following her as she walked in front with his hand in her grip.

Without stopping his step, he reaches for his phone with his left hand. He tap on the notification and sees that someone was sending him message at the time.

It was written there "This is mr. Scarlet, right? The broken hand boy I done check on. Can we meet?" An unknown number texted him.

Ax frowned, wondering who texted him. But he kind of get the gist of who is texting him already due to the message written. But just for confirmation, "Which doctor?"

"I'm the doctor that did check-up on you yesterday, doctor Hershel."

"Shouldn't it be me who text you? And how did you even get my number anyway?"

"Your mom gave it to me."

In the midst of it, Emilia noticed that he was texting someone on his phone. So she took a peek at his screen and asked him in wonder "Who is it?"

"Oh. It's just the doctor that was in charge on supervising me when I was at the hospital. He was also the one who did check-up on me yesterday and get the cast off of my left hand. Now, he's saying that he wants fo meet me."

Emilia's mood seems to lowered a little upon hearing it. "Then, since he was your doctor, you should meet him. Who knows what he gonna say. Maybe related to your hand or something."

"But not now." Ax noticed a change on her mood. "We got something to do right now."

He released the grip over his hand to type a message for a moment. "I'll meet you in the afternoon. Maybe on five. Just send me the lication you wanna meet at." He turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket . Emilia's smooth and faur left hand was held by his right hand. Their fingers crossed each others. "Let's go." He said to her.

She simply replied with a smile.